Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, former chief of staff to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, will deliver the Realnews 12th anniversary lecture, the management of Realnews Magazine and Publications Limited has announced.
The lecture on “Africa in World Shifting Geopolitics, Matters Arising on Democracy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Resources” will be held at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, on Tuesday, November 19, 2024.
Ambassador Gambari’s acceptance to deliver the lecture was communicated to Realnews in an email dated April 27, 2024, that he sent, stating: “I am delighted to re-confirm my acceptance in principle of the invitation to deliver the lecture.”
Gambari, a Nigerian academic and diplomat, served as chief of staff to Buhari from 2020 to 2023. Before this, Gambari was the longest-serving permanent representative of Nigeria to the United Nations from 1990 to 1999, under five heads of state and presidents, and minister of external affairs from 1984 to 1985.
While at the UN, Gambari was the president of UNICEF in 1999; and became under-secretary-general and the first special adviser on Africa to secretary-general Kofi Annan from 1999 to 2005.
He was the under-secretary-general of the UN for political affairs from 2005 to 2007 under secretary-generals Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. His last appointment in the UN was from January 2010 to July 2012, when he was appointed by Ki-moon and the chairperson of the African Union Commission as the joint African Union-United Nations special representative for Darfur.
Born on November 24, 1944, in Ilorin, Kwara State, Gambari attended King’s College, Lagos, and subsequently went to the London School of Economics where he bagged a B. Sc. (economics) degree (1968) specialising in international relations. Later he got his M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1974) degrees from Columbia University, New York, United States in political science and international relations.
He taught at the City University of New York before working at the University of Albany and subsequently at Ahmadu Bello University, in Zaria, Kaduna State.
From 1986 to 1989, he was a visiting professor at three universities in Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University, and Howard University. He has also been a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC and a resident scholar at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Rockefeller Foundation-run center in Italy. He has authored many books and published articles in reputable journals in foreign policy and international relations, including the ‘Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy: Nigeria after Second Republic’.
The diplomat also served as the minister for external affairs between 1984 and 1985 under General Muhammadu Buhari’s military regime, after he was the director general of The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
The lecture will be chaired by UN women’s country representative in Nigeria, Beatrice Eyong, who will also moderate the panel session.
